Fantasy Generic Fantasy RP (CLOSED)

[Dragongal]

"But he'll have to bring guards and all unless he can sneak out. Though maybe it's a good idea, if it's just him." It was nice, to her, talking about their coming wedding, but she was starting to feel tired.

 

[Solar Daddy]

"I agree completely." Callum spoke, realizing how tired Emmalia was getting. He smiled softly and began to rant, hoping his calm voice would soothe her to sleep. "And then we can have wonderful cake, I know the best baker of cakes in all the realms, her name is Tanya, lovely old woman with a heart of gold, the secret to her cake is..."

 

[Dragongal]

Sure enough, Emmalia fell asleep like that, without even realizing enough to try to stop herself.

 

[Solar Daddy]

Callum stayed awake a while longer to make sure she wouldn't wake up. He didn't want her to only get a small amount of sleep before confronting her parents - even if they had almost a week to get there, he never wanted Emmalia to miss a second of sleep when she could.

 

[Dragongal]

Those six days passed in leisure and some boredom. The trip was, thankfully, at no point stopped by monsters or anything of the sort. As they approached, Emmalia seemed to grow more and more quietly angry about her parents as she recalled how she had been treated by them, but it only ever took a few words from Callum or a gentle touch to calm her down. The LaFaren castle was at the top of a rocky hill that rose high above the low swamps. It was a huge castle for a Lord, bigger than Callum's but with less practicality, and it seemed much older. Emmalia was obliged to look away when anyone passed, and finally pulled her cloak out of her pack just so she could pull up the billowing hood and hide her face, lest some alarm be raised before she could enter. After the last guards had checked the carriage, she squeezed Callum's hand tightly.

 

[Solar Daddy]

Callum had been rather impressed with the LaFaren castle. It was grand and could obviously hold some defense due to its size alone. An army might get lost in it attempting to find the Lord. Callum stepped out of the carriage when it was parked, and offered his hand to Emmalia. He didn't move until she did, partly because he wanted to go when she was ready, but also because he didn't want to get lost.

 

[Dragongal]

Emmalia led him through the massive pine doors and into the front hall. She kept her hood up to keep the servants from recognizing her. Just to prevent suspicion,they allowed a servant to guide them to an audience with Lord and Lady LaFaren. Both were lavishly dressed and seemed very serious. Before introductions could even be made, the Lady called out, "Huntress, removed your cowl." It seemed clear that the Lady didn't like dark hunters. Emmalia glanced at Callum, then slowly pushed her hood back. Never had she thought she'd have to stand there again, but this time not only did she have Callum protecting her, she had her hunter's necklace marking her status. They couldn't touch her.

There was silence for a moment, then the Lord and Lady began demanding of Callum what kind of trick this was. Em ended it by loudly saying, "It's no trick. The King sent us, as we told the Guards. And I am Emmalia LaFaren, truly." Normally she didn't even say her surname because she didn't consider herself a LaFaren anymore, but her parents didn't know that yet.

After moments of pure, shocked silence, Lord LaFaren said, "Where have you been...? Did this man kidnap you?"

Emmalia laughed harshly. "This is Lord Callum Cross. He did not kidnap me at all. I didn't even meet him until three years ago." She looked at Callum. Now was his chance to say anything.

 

[Solar Daddy]

Callum looked over at Emmalia, rather excited to see Emmalia so brave and strong in a situation that might make normal men crumble. Meeting a family you've disowned for years for the betterment of the Kingdom was something Callum didn't take lightly. It only made him fall more in love with Emmalia. "As stated, I am Callum Cross, Warlord of King Cassian."

 

[Dragongal]

The Lord and Lady didn't seem to know what to do at that moment. Finally, Lady LaFaren said, "Why are you here with him? Where have you been?"

Emmalia took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and said, "I ran away. I wasn't kidnapped or murdered, I ran away. I'm here with him because Cassian sent us." There was no faltering in her tone or her posture - now was the moment to be brutally honest. It was hard not to look at Callum for support, but she managed it. It was finally the moment to tell her parents of why they were such awful people.

"I don't believe you," Lord LaFaren said immediately. "You may be here because of Cassian, but why would you have run away? We gave you everything you could have asked for. You'd have lived in a castle, you'd be married by now, probably have had children, immeasurable gold, the finest of clothing - "

"And something else. I'd have had your imperious intrusion constantly. I wouldn't have had a lot of things, for all of that, I wouldn't have had free will, a husband I loved, any sense of pride in what I did, any importance. I'd have been a pawn like you two, just following the rules of your game of manners and expectations. Predictable. Commonplace." Emmalia's bitterness was starting to show, but she wasn't going to stop. She managed to reel herself in enough to calmly say, "I did what I had to - I made a choice."

Lady LaFaren stood up and said, "This is inappropriate on many levels, in front of a Warlord, Emmalia, we can continue speaking away from him, this is rude - "

"No," was all Emmalia said, and she said it clearly. "Even when I come back after ten years of presumed death, you care less about me and more about looking good for another Lord. That's just one of the reasons I left. But we won't talk of this later, because I won't be here later."

Lady LaFaren scowled and looked to Callum. "I'm very sorry for this, Lord Cross." Evidently, she seemed to think Emmalia would be there later.

Emmalia felt like she might snap then and there she was wound up so tight with anger, but she looked like a statue. Still, impassive, and utterly cold. But her eyes were glistening with anger.

 

[Solar Daddy]

Callum decided that supporting her in this moment too blatantly would make it seem like Emmalia couldn't hold her own against her parents, but he decided a bit of agreement could help her a bit. "Lord and Lady LaFaren, I think you should reconsider your statements to your daughter. After all, I hold family above all else." He knew that he wasn't that great of a leader, but the title of Warlord carried it's own weight that others could tell. He was hoping his mere presence on the matter would open them up a bit to Emmalia, even if she or her parents didn't want to.

 

[Dragongal]

Emmalia looked over at Callum and gave him a slight smile, then looked back to her parents to see what they would dare say at this point.

Dare they did. Lady LaFaren said, "Lord Cross, I don't think you understand, our daughter was lost to us for ten years - "

Emmalia couldn't help but laugh and cut off Lady LaFaren. In fact, she didn't try to stop it at all. "Lost to you...? Lost to you? Please, you didn't care about me even when I was here. You used me as a bargaining chip and nothing more. The way you treated me - the way you let other people treat me?"

Lady LaFaren gasped in horror. "We never let anyone treat you with anything less than the highest respect! We vetted everyone who courted you had had only the best nursemaids. Nobody was permitted to treat you with anything less - "

"And letting a man attempt to rape me was respect?!" Emmalia snapped. For some reason, she felt the urge to cry at what her mother had said. Her voice wasn't calm anymore, in any way, it was loud and emotional - whether it was pain or anger was unclear, but she knew she felt hurt - not by her parent's disregard of her, but by the way that that incident was shrugged off, ignored, forgotten. Callum, who knew her well enough, could tell she felt pained. "You made me apologize to him when I defended myself! You made excuses for him! You tried to make me keep courting him! That isn't respect or honor or kindness! That's why I left! That's why I couldn't stand your company! You made so many rules and treated me like shit! You killed my cat, you terrified me to try to get my submission, and you MADE ME COURT A RAPIST!" The worst part was she couldn't even tell her parents that Ander had actually kidnapped her, tortured her, and raped her years after the referenced incident. It was maddening that her parents trivialized it so.

 

[Solar Daddy]

Callum had to use all of his might to keep himself from yelling with Emmalia at the LaFarens. Every point Emmalia made was not only valid, but just. Instead, he tried to let Emmalia lose her anger and calm down. When it was obvious she was only getting herself more aggressive, Callum put a gentle hand on her lower back. Part of it was to let Emmalia know he supported her - and partly because he wanted to bring her back to the present, back to reality. He didn't speak a word, for anything he had to say would probably just make things worse for all parties involved.

 

[Dragongal]

The sensation of Callum's hand on her lower back made Emmalia slowly come back to the present. She followed up everything she said with, "That's why I left and never came back, and I never planed on coming back, but the King asked us to be here and that's all. I'm leaving once this is over and I never want to see either of you again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me after that kind of treatment? Shame on me."

rd and Lady LaFaren didn't know what to do - they had clearly never been spoken to that way. Emmalia lowered her voice and said, "Now, Lord Cross is here to ask you on behalf of the king. Ignore me - you're both good at that."

 

[Solar Daddy]

Callum decided to not give the LaFarens any time to think about what Emmalia had said by speaking right away. "Ma'am, sir, we need your units to help patrol areas of Trulane, specifically locations King Cassian has deemed necessary to protect, or possible insurgency locations."

 

[Dragongal]

Lord Lafaren managed to stop staring at his daughter for a few moments to focus on Callum. "The King has it - he knows and has always known that we stand by him." His voice was deep and even, used t negtiatins

Lady Lafaren quickly added in, "On the condition that our daughter stay with us for dinner. After dinner, she can leave if she so wishes."

"What? No, you can't do that!" Emmalia was aghast at the very suggestion. "You can't.... That isn't fair."

 

[Solar Daddy]

"Excuse us for just a moment." Callum said more politely than he intended, but it was more so just his inner politician speaking. He turned a but and faced Emmalia, speaking quietly. "We need those units, Em. I won't force you into having dinner with them, but... This might just stop the coup dead in its tracks. I'll stand by whatever choice you make."

 

[Dragongal]

Emmalia sighed and quietly said, "I know what I have to do, but I'm going to bitch the whole way through it." It wasn't a question of if she would do it, there wasn't even a question at all. Sternly, she added, "But you're going to dinner too." There was no way she would be able to make it from then to after dinner unless he was there with her.

 

[Solar Daddy]

Callum nodded slowly. "Will we let them know we're engaged?" He asked quietly. He didn't want her parents to hound them, but he believed it might just make them rethink how they feel about Emmalia, and how she not only married a warlord without their help, but practically built thay warlord from scratch. It was an impressive feat for anyone.

 

[Dragongal]

"Oh, of course. You're stuck in this too," she said, joking slightly. Except, it was less of a joke, and more of the truth. He would now forever be linked with her parents, and who knew what would happen now. Bracing herself, Emmalia said to her parents, "Lord Cross will be dining with us as well."

"Absolutely not," her father said immediately. "That is inappropriate."

Now was the time for Emmalia to show her hand, to truly shock her parents. "It's inappropriate for me to dine with my fiance?"

Both Lord and Lady seemed shocked, and stared at Callum for confirmation.

 

[Solar Daddy]

Callum had to hide his smile just to make sure they didn't think it was a hoax. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to have dinner with my beloved?" He wanted to cherish the moment for as long as possible.

 

[Dragongal]

Finally, Lord LaFaren was the one to speak. "Is this some kind of joke?you come in here with the daughter I haven't seen in ten years and ask for soldiers on behalf of the king, and then you say you're engaged to her? You don't even have my blessing!"

Emmalia quipped, "And he never needed it. Check the law, he doesn't need anything from you. We're here because there was an attempted coup and it may well happen again in the coming weeks. Don't believe us? Call a mage. Cast a truth spell." She leaned back and crossed her arms defiantly. After all these years, it was kind of nice to have her parents grasping for straws. So many times she had been in hopeless arguments with them, now they were on the losing side, and it was worth relishing.

Surprisingly, Lady LaFaren shrugged. "Fine. We can call our court mage. You two will just have to wait for him. Shouldn't be more than a half hour til he's here."

 

[Solar Daddy]

"Or," Callum began, feeling himself getting more inpatient by the second. "I could just call immediate control of your forces, since this is a crisis all of Trulane is experiencing. I'm sure Cassian wouldn't mind, we've been rather close recently." He spoke in an elegant, almost pleasant way, like how politicians and lords used when they wanted something - Callum wanted them to remember that, he was a warlord, after all. "It'd be a shame if we couldn't spare enough troops to guard this small area of Trulane. I'm sure you'd understand, of course."

 

[Dragongal]

Lord LaFaren scowled. "Nevermind. I believe you two, you seem a perfect pair."

Lady LaFaren said, "But I want the mage still, because I want to know why you really left, Emmalia." Her voice was soft, a perfect mimicry of the caring voice of a mother.

"I told you," Emmalia said with her voice low, but not soft. "I could not stand you two. I was sick of not having freedom, i was sick of being angry and hurt. That's the truth of it."

Her mother looked away with an expression similar to disgust. Lord LaFaren seemed to take control of the situation. "I'll give you the troops, Cross. You won't even have to stay for dinner. However. Should Emmalia wish to stay as inheritor of the Western lands, she must have dinner with us." Emmalia was going to cut in and say she didn't care for the lands, then her father said, "Or, should she leave, the lands will eventually go to Ander Dorenz."

In the shock of the moment, Emmalia froze, her eyes wide with horror. It was undoubtedly true that her parents would do such a thing. But him as a lord? All of the servants she had grown up with, the leasants, everyone, the treatment would be worse than it already was. When she could move again, she shouted, "Fine! We'll stay! Only because I will not let him torment people anymore. Not to please you two."

 

[Solar Daddy]

"Calm." Callum said quietly and brought his hand back to her back. "We'll be happy to stay for dinner." He spoke the same way he did before, but a bit lower in tone. "I appreciate your cooperation, as well as King Cassian."

 

[Dragongal]

Emmalia heard his voice and looked over at him, then back to her parents. Now what?

Lady LaFaren said, "Good, dinner is to be served in a few hours. In the meantime, Emmalia, perhaps you would like to walk around your old home?"

"I will walk around with Callum. No escort will be necessary," Em stated clearly. She took Callum's hand in hers and started walking away to another hall, when her mother said, "We did not excuse you, Emmalia."

Em said over her shoulder, "What a shame," and ducked into the hallway with Callum in tow.